“Poetry, every word,” I said, and her flashing eyes narrowed even further. “But even if I can’t kill you, I can send you back to the hell you—”

A knock interrupted my threat, and I groaned when a door opened at my back, halting my progress on the zip ties. “Deacon, reports are coming in from the south gate.”

Bennett circled me, headed for the hall. “Send Chief Kaughman in to watch her.”

The door closed, and I had less than a minute to twist my plastic bindings before it opened again, and Chief Kaughman settled into the chair across from mine. “Well, well, little girl. Looks like you’re in over your head.” His eyes shone, and his lips turned up in a leering grin.

I gave my hands one last, fierce twist, and the plastic snapped. I lunged across the table, my left hand already ablaze. Shackles bit into my ankles. The table slid beneath my weight.

Kaughman’s eyes widened. He stood and backed into his own chair. Then my glowing palm slammed into the police chief’s chest.

Chapter Twenty-One

Smoke curled from the smoldering cotton beneath my hand, and meaningless, pain-filled syllables dripped from the chief’s lips as he hung from the bright force burning between us. His navy cap hit the table, then rolled onto the concrete. Seconds later, the light faded from my hand and I had to grab the front of his cassock to keep him from sliding to the floor. I laid Chief Kaughman across the table between us, facedown, then scrambled to search every pocket I could reach. The third held a set of keys.

My pounding heart counted the seconds ticking away while I squatted to try the keys in my shackles. When the fourth one slid home, I grabbed the chief’s gun—careful to keep my hands off the trigger—and examined it, wishing I knew how to check the clip. Or enable the safety. Or do anything with it other than aim and pull the trigger.

With my right hand wielding the gun and my left ready to ignite, I opened the door just enough to peek into the hall.

It was empty.

I tiptoed past several empty interrogation rooms, then peeked around a corner before silently searching another empty hallway. Anathema’s run on the south gate had diverted most police and fake-exorcist manpower from the courthouse, but one corner and another hallway later, I heard the echo of voices headed toward me.